


Letters Jonathan Creek Never Even Remotely Considered Sending

by emef



Category: Jonathan Creek (TV)
Genre: Avril Lavigne References, Drunken Confessions, Epistolary, F/M, Twenty Four Hours to Live, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unsent letters, dangerous workplace environments, sleep-deprived confessions, warning for references to animal cruelty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:27:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jonathan Creek wrote a letter and one time he didn’t: a Jonathan/Maddy ship manifesto of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters Jonathan Creek Never Even Remotely Considered Sending

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline-wise, this would take place instead of the series two Christmas Special. Basically - ignore season 3.
> 
> Thanks to Charloween for beta/suggestions.

Letters Jonathan Creek Never Even Remotely Considered Sending

WHEN INEBRIATED

Dear Maddy,

I was just fine without you.

I was fine. Content. Equanimous.

I was. Past tense. The past tense is important there. In the present tense, I'm sitting in a seedy bloody bar in America listening to a vacuous song and I’m identifying with part of the lyrics and I’m sure it’s all your fault.

It goes something like this: 

“Why d’you have to go and make things so complicated?  
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else  
Gets me frustrated.”

There’s more of it but transcribing the lyrics is a bit of a challenge at the moment.

[illegible; scratched-out]

All I wanted was for you to look at me once, just once, without an ulterior motive. Just once. The split second before you smile, your eyes twinkle just a bit like you're still deciding whether to smile or frown, and sometimes, sometimes, it looks like you want to frown but instead your can't help it and smile up at me and I wish -

I haven't drunk that much, Maddy, really. Only I’m out of practice. Adam’s insisted I accompany him on this tour but none of the pubs - sorry, bars - believe me when I tell them I'm in my middle thirties and they insist on proof of age, but Adam thinks it's funny to confiscate my passport. You would think it’s funny too, I bet. This is the first proper drink I've had in ages.

Not that I want to, for the most part. Have you had the beverage Americans call beer? Wish you were here to have some with me. Or I wish I could stop wishing you were here to have some with me. Either one would be fine really.

[Unsigned and unsent]

 

WHEN ANGRY

Dear Maddy,

Why are you - you always demand my attention when I don't want to give it to you and act repulsed whenever I want to spend time with you voluntarily? I would tell you how I feel if I thought you wouldn't use it to mock me but honestly I think you would. What are you like, Maddy. What are you like. You’re offended at the drop of a hat but you use other people as punching bags like you think we can't be hurt. Other people aren't - they aren't yours to control, Maddy. You haven't won something if you get them to do things for you when they didn't want to.

I don't know why everyone keeps thinking they should carry on saying one thing while they really want another thing, like they think I don't know all along.

Shall I tell you what’s happened this week? Adam’s accidentally killed a bird. Three birds, actually. Lovebirds.

Magicians use doves - pigeons, really - for tricks, because they can be subjected to small spaces and relative dehydration without worry. But Adam thought that for his special exhibition performance in Los Angeles, oh no, doves wouldn’t do, he had to have lovebirds. They’re small but colourful, he said. They would be different, he said. He’d checked with the animal supplier, he said.

But of course he hadn’t. And I kept asking him, too, about the specifics. What had the supplier said? How much oxygen did the lovebirds need _exactly_?

I’d calculated the likely air quality of Adam’s breast pocket, and from what I’d found almost any bird would be safe. But then on the first day of rehearsals, we discovered the other reason magicians always use doves: they don’t complain. Lovebirds, however, are noisy and Adam ended up asphyxiating them in an effort to quiet them.

I could _see_ Adam was playing me every time he said it was fine, it was fine. It didn’t matter that I had concerns, he went ahead and recklessly did whatever he wanted the worst part is that Adam thinks it's all a funny story. But it isn't and whatever you think, Maddy, the way you are with me isn't a funny story either. It's my genuine emotions.

I don't know why you think I jump the minute you ask, Maddy, but it's not because I enjoy being used. It's because [illegible; scratched-out] I know I've never said as much but surely you must know. It wouldn't hurt to recognize that distinction.

[Unsigned and unsent]

 

WHEN SLEEP-DEPRIVED

The truth is that I was jealous of that Shelford bloke but I didn’t know it until I was kissing you in front of him. I know that the way I feel is hormonal, it’s just some kind of reaction to your pheromones but I just wish…

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t write another letter, but I’m so sleep-deprived, Maddy. One of the roadies quit and I’ve spent half the night helping the others in the loading dock. Got out of the theatre so late it was almost early, which is no good in… wherever we are. Honestly I’m not sure. The theatre is _so old_ , Maddy. The theatre is so old, it might've been built by the British before the Americans got all revolutionary. Well, not that old, Maddy, but you know. Old. Old and worn out.When we got here today the loading dock doors creaked so loudly that we kept expecting them to come crashing down on us. I can’t wait to get to New York.

Sometimes I can't sleep and I think about you, and I wonder if you think about me.

[Unsigned and unsent]

 

WHEN HE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE

Dear Maddy,

A loading dock door fell and I probably won’t see you again. I’m sorry to be telling you in writing; I tried to call. Don’t worry, I’m not in pain. It’s just that I probably won’t be taken to a hospital in time. I’m trapped under this door and the way I fell, I’m losing blood. It doesn’t even hurt, Maddy, but I know how much blood the human body contains and even with bandages, I have twenty-four hours at most. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. Sorry, I’m nervous even though I’m dying, it’s the adrenaline. I need to tell you that ~~I hope you know what a nuisance you are~~ I hope you know that I love you.

Yours,  
Jonathan

[Unsent]

 

WHEN SENTIMENTAL

I saw a film once where the leading character thought he was about to die, and on the voiceover, he says that all he could think was "I never told her" and I'm writing to you now to tell you that that is something that doesn’t happen only in fiction.

I care about you more than I care about anyone else. I care about your appalling, dangerous cooking, and your hazardous driving. I care about the look of utter loathing in your eyes when I correct your vocabulary and I care that your reaction to danger is to talk incessantly. I care that you brush me off all the time, tell me how little you need me, over and over, but that every time I’ve held you in my arms you looked at me like you were taking each moment so very, very seriously.

I care that [illegible; scratched out] probably been every bit as frustrating as you have, if not more. I think too much about the ebb and flow of people’s attention, of what they notice and what they don’t, of where they’re likely to look, of their distraction, attraction. Doing things to attract your attention - doing anything, seems like - the tiniest gesture makes me feel as though I’m yelling. You always seem to be waiting for me to - I can’t make myself do exactly as you expect, it makes me feel like a circus animal, like I’m being expected to perform. But of course it’s nothing like that, and the truth is that by consistently doing the opposite of what you seem to want me to do, I’m really just acting like a cretin. 

All I’ve ever wanted was another plausibly deniable reason to kiss you.

[Unsigned and unsent]

 

WHEN SOMEONE ELSE WRITES THE LETTER

Dear Miss Magellan,

Please find enclosed a business class ticket to John F. Kennedy airport. I've taken the liberty of contacting your publisher; he informs me that you have no obligations on October 15th and are therefore available to attend my show on that date, after which you will take Jonathan back to him room and discuss the fact that after his workplace accident on September 29th he shrieked and gibbered your name until we got him a telephone, and then sobbed and whimpered until we got him stationery.

Kind regards,  
Adam Klaus

P.s. Included is a ticket to the show, please refer to the information printed thereon for name and address of theatre.

P.p.s. And if at all possible, Miss Magellan, _do_ confess to Jonathan whatever sentimental dross you feel towards him at the earliest possible convenience.


End file.
